


Coming Undone

by JoJo



Series: Getting a Grip [2]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Early Work, Episode Related, Episode: s02e12 Bloodbath, Gen, Not Beta Read, Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 23:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hutch fears his partner is losing it following the cult abductions, but he can't seem to find a way to reach him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Undone

"Allright then, that's one dark brown jacket, and one uh... silk tie... what did you say these stains were?" Peering down at the items on the counter before him, Tom, the teenager on duty in Mister Kleen, pursed his lips in distaste.

"Oh I don't know," the owner of the items said vaguely, from his position in the window. He had been staring out of it while Tom was finding his account. "Maybe oyster sauce."

"And, uh... when do you want these by?"

A short pause while the customer began slowly shaking his head at something he could see through the glass.

"Sorry, what did you say?"

"Is this urgent... or will Friday do?"

"Friday," muttered the customer, still distracted. "Yeah, fine."

"Here, you'll need this."

At last he turned his head. He stared at Tom for a second as if willing himself to remember what he was doing there and what had been said to him. Then he seemed to engage himself. "Thanks," he murmured, reaching for the yellow slip. He screwed it up absently in his hand and went for the door. Tom watched as he walked down the steps out on to the sidewalk, dragging a pair of dark glasses from a back pocket as if suddenly finding the sunlight too bright to bear. Then he set out across the street towards whatever he had been observing so closely.

The man zigzagged a casual way through the traffic to where a red and white car was parked at an angle in half a space. The car was flanked by its irate driver and an over-enthusiastic traffic cop who had clearly got out of bed the wrong side this morning.

"Can I help here?" he said as he reached the car. The traffic cop swivelled his head to see who the new arrival was.

"And you are?" he demanded.

The man put one hand on the roof of the car while he dug in a pocket for his police badge which he flipped open casually, making the traffic cop more angry than ever. "Hmm, looks to me like my partner here may have been getting a little bit irritated, Officer. It isn't a great bit of parking, I'll give you that, but you see, it really is a beast of a vehicle -- know what I mean?" He smiled pleasantly. "We'll be moving on now," he said, motioning at his partner with his head that he should get in the car.

"You think that just because you're hotshot homicide cops you can swan around this city and park wherever and however you like," the traffic cop said in complete disgust. "Yeah, go on, you go! I've had the we're-all-in-it-together speech from your partner -- as well as a bunch of abuse." He watched belligerently as the man with whom he had been arguing tore himself away from the situation with difficulty and got behind the wheel. From across the road in Mister Kleen's, Tom looked on as the red and white car was maneuvred clumsily out of the space and off up the road, gaining speed as it reached the corner, spinning out of sight with a grumble of its engine.

"Is that your eruption for the day?" the car's passenger asked mildly, taking off his dark glasses for a second and looking down at the screwed-up ball of yellow paper in his hand.

"The guy really had an attitude, Starsk!" the driver responded, still grim-faced. "Didn't give me a chance to explain. Soon as he saw the ID he was just desperate to get out his little book of violations and stick one on us."

"Well we weren't exactly in the middle of a really important case," Starsky said. "Lighten up will you, you're giving me a headache." He let the ball of paper drop to the floor of the car forgotten, slipping the dark glasses back on.

"If you have a headache you should get it checked out," Hutch said, much more bad-temperedly than he intended.

Unsurprisingly Starsky did not reply. He seemed to have little appetite for verbal combat these days.

"So you want to drop by Hug's for a sandwich?" Hutch asked, hoping the word sandwich would produce the desired Pavlovian reaction.

"Nah, let's get this meeting out of the way. We can go for beers there after."

Ah, beers. Now beers he did have an appetite for. 

Hutch brought up his mental balance sheet and added "beers" to the debits side. Beers, to go with headaches. But still, he told himself, the credits remained solid and numerous, and he rang them up quickly to keep himself from getting anxious. Going to psych services good as gold -- kerching, keeping up the physical therapy on his tendons -- kerching, agreeing to move out of Ridgeway and into a temporary safe house -- kerching, handing over all the Marcus case files without a murmur of protest -- big kerching. 

He's in a holding pattern, Hutch liked to think. Not himself, but nothing changing, nothing getting worse. 

At the police garage he let Starsky get out and then leaned over and picked up the ball of yellow paper from the floor, straightening it out and putting it in his own pocket. Boy, Mother Hen didn't even begin to cover it.

*

"Why are you so late? We all have other things to do you know." Captain Dobey's mood had been volcanic all week and he glared at them as they sidled into his office.

"Sorry, Cap, unavoidable... dry-cleaning," Starsky said. He and Hutch sat down in the two empty chairs in Dobey's office. Across from them were Jason Dean, elbows on the desk, chin resting on his hands, and Luis del Rey, slumped back in his chair with his arms wrapped round some files as if they were a hot-water bottle.

"Where are we at?"

The Captain's question plopped down in the center of the room and sat there for a bit while five pairs of eyes stared at it.

Then Dean sat up straight, looking a little nervously across at his more experienced colleagues, but Hutch waved him ahead. Dean cleared his throat.

"Reeder's out of the hospital wing, Captain, and the trial's set to go ahead as scheduled after all -- Wednesday morning. You want us there, right?"

Captain Dobey nodded his assent. "At least one of you two, at all times. Do they have any idea when Starsky will be called?"

Dean glanced over the room and shook his head. "Not til the following week, they think."

"You got that, Starsky?" Dobey said with his customary growl when speaking to Starsky. It was a slightly testy tone designed to mask his anxiety.

"I'll see if I can fit it in," Starsky replied with his customary cool when speaking to almost everybody, a calmly helpful tone designed to mask his internal disarray.

"And Gail Harper?"

Luis del Rey shifted himself from his slump. "They're gonna call her as witness for the prosecution."

"Let me know when she's called, huh?" Starsky asked. "I'd like to be there for her."

"Starsky I want you in that courthouse as little as possible," Dobey said.

"It's OK, Davey, we think her Dad's going to make it. She won't be alone," del Rey said.

"Just let me know will you? I need to be there." No heat had entered Starsky's voice at all -- it was still at that controlled, unemotional level that Hutch was beginning to detest.

Dobey clearly struggled with his own response, but eventually he said, "You know what I think." He looked back to del Rey. "Any more from forensics? The Jane Doe?"

"Still unidentified, Cap. She coulda been one of the missing, or someone we don't know about. There... uh... there wasn't much left to go on. She died at the scene a few weeks before... before we got there."

"And the others?"

" John Amos, 22 -- died at the scene, maybe two or three days before. Raymond White, 19 -- we didn't have a file on him. Student, never reported missing -- his room-mates thought he'd dropped out. Died at the scene, round the same time as Amos. Then, uh... Lisa Gatlin, 27, and Judith Hirschbaum, 26. Both died at the scene the day... the day... we..." Del Rey's voice tailed off. He looked rather helplessly at Dean. Both of them avoided looking at Starsky, but Hutch did. He stared hard at his partner, trying to read his expression. He appeared to be thinking, but evidently not about what del Rey had just said.

"Defoe?"

"Didn't die like the others," Dean said, taking over. "Shot in the head. That same day. No weapon found. We gotta guess that McCarthy or Boyd Black did it. Internal coup."

"What about Marcus?" It was Hutch that asked that, although getting the name out seemed to cost him.

"He keeps asking for you, Hutch," said del Rey. "Won't talk to anyone else. They keep telling us his mental state is deteriorating. He sits and writes poems all day long. Reams of the stuff."

"I'll bet he does," Hutch said. He gestured at the files still hugged into del Rey's chest. "And those?"

"Mary Sue Freeman, Peter van Rensie, fifteen other missing persons possibly connected to the case. We have a dedicated team working on the missing."

"And no news on McCarthy and Boyd Black?"

"Still out there," said del Rey with a swallow and a quick glance at Starsky, who looked as if he was about to say something.

"Starsky?" encouraged Dobey. He didn't like to leave him out. Anything unsaid in these meetings was unsaid for a reason, but psych services had made it pretty clear to him -- any officer involved in a traumatic experience should be removed from the case but kept fully cognisant of any and all progress in said case.

Starsky clicked his fingers, remembering something. "My Mister Kleen ticket!" he said.

There was a moment's awkward silence, then Hutch reached slowly into his pocket. "It's here, Starsk," he said. "You dropped it."

Starsky took it from him, clearly wondering why it was all creased. He folded it in two, rolling it absently between his forefingers and thumbs as if it was cigarette paper. "Are we all through here?" he asked.

"I guess," said Dean uncomfortably.

"You're doing great work, Jay," Hutch told him. "You too, Luis. We know how much this stuff... sucks."

"And talking of great work," Dobey said, "Suppose you two made an effort to turn up to your appointments on time, huh? That would be a thing. I'm not sure that sorting out your dry-cleaning on work time counts as a valid excuse."

Hutch winced a little. Starsky had looked at Dobey just for a second like he had no idea what he was talking about, and then he shrugged apologetically.

"Sorry, Cap, it won't happen again."

"Do you have any idea, Starsky, how many times you have said that to me?"

"Two or three?" Starsky hazarded hopefully.

"More like once a week, every week, for... oh, at least seven years."

"That's... oh, at least three hundred and sixty four times, Starsk," Hutch said.

"Give me a break," said Starsky, "At least I'm consistent."

*

Starsky was called to give his evidence as early as the Friday afternoon. Control radioed it through while they were in the middle of sweeping up the remains of a spectacularly bungled hold-up in a school secretary's office.

"Two thirty!" said Starsky in dismay, looking down at himself, resplendent in an overwashed t-shirt of indeterminate colour and jeans that were covered in mud splashes.

"Well didn't you get your dry-cleaning, Starsk? The jacket and tie?"

Starsky looked crestfallen. "I lost the ticket," he said.

"You lost...? Starsky, what is wrong with you?"

"OK, OK, don't jump down my throat. I musta left it somewhere. Dropped it. I don't know. I sure don't feel like arguing with the guy in Mister Kleen."

Hutch looked at his watch. "We got time," he said. "Come back to my place, you can have something of mine."

"Aw, Hutch, I don't like your suits. Or your pants. Or your shirts."

"You got a choice?" said Hutch.

Starsky opened his mouth to try and find one but Hutch warned him off. "I may be about to erupt," he said.

"Ouch, that can be so painful. OK, I'll wear your stuff."

"Right, you make sure this nice lady has our number. We'd better move."

*

"Can't I keep these on?"

Hutch heard the plaintive voice as he was rummaging in the bathroom cabinet for aspirin. The chaos of the school robbery, where everyone was clamouring to tell them something and none of it seemed to help them, had given both detectives a headache.

Hutch came out to join his partner by the closet. "Starsky, you look like you've been wading out to see your pet hippopotamus. Look, I know the suit pants are long -- you'll just have to wear a belt."

"Oh please... this is going to be bad enough without being uncomfortable. I know it's not your fault you got legs like a giraffe, but I need to feel relaxed."

"Going into court with jeans the colour of oxtail soup is going to make you feel relaxed?"

Starsky stared at himself in the mirror. Yes, his jeans looked a little messy, but he'd be sitting behind a desk. The pressed denim shirt was good, the tie dull enough so he didn't care, the suit jacket a little big but nothing ridiculous. The thought of having hated suit pants and an unfamiliar belt on bothered him a whole lot more than he knew it should. "I need to feel relaxed," he repeated, his voice faltering unexpectedly. Hutch, standing behind him, looked quickly at his face in the glass. There was a glimmer of wet in his eyes. Starsky put one hand out in front against the mirror as if to steady himself. Hutch put out his own hand, taking hold of him under the arm.

"Got the wobbles there, partner?"

Starsky turned round and ducked past him. His eyes now had the look of a sick dog. He stumbled across the room and into the bathroom, slamming shut the door. Hutch took a quick tour round the apartment, giving himself time to think, looking at his watch, and then went and leaned up against the bathroom door. All was quiet inside. He tapped.

"OK, you can wear the jeans," he said through the panels. "The belt was a bad idea."

No reply except the sound of running water and splashing. He tapped again. "Starsk, let the hippopotamus take a bath by himself." He just prayed he was taking the right approach. Eventually the water stopped. The door unlocked and opened. Starsky came out, trying to walk past as if he had just had a normal, everyday bathroom break. Hutch put an arm out to stop him.

"Don't," he said.

"Don't what?" Starsky sounded subdued.

"Let me in, Starsky... just for a second."

"Bathroom's free," Starsky mumbled.

"Let me in your head."

Starsky looked at him incredulously. He was pushing against the arm still across his chest. "You don't want to go there, believe me."

"What was that about? You sick?" Hutch's arm was immovable.

"Just the thought of seeing Reeder, Hutch. There's only one other person on this earth I want to look at less than him."

"Yeah, which one?"

"Hutch, we don't have time for this." Starsky was pushing again, his breath starting to quicken, a spark of fear in his eyes.

"Which one, Starsk?"

"It doesn't matter. I can't remember. It's always dark, for crying out loud... come on, Hutch, let me go now. We got to get to court. I can do this."

Just for a few seconds more Hutch kept his arm in place. Always dark? What's always dark, buddy? Starsky was breathing calmly again, nearly back to the controlled policeman about to give evidence in court against a man who had tried to kill him.

First wobble since it all went down. Should it go on the debit or credit side? Hutch wasn't sure. Maybe credit. Something better than nothing. Hutch lowered his arm.

"I know you can do it," he said. "But, you don't look at him, right? Remember what we said? Don't let him get near you. If you got to look anywhere, look at me. I'll be there."

"It's fine, Hutch, it'll all be fine. Don't worry about me."

Hutch opened the door for him. "Do I look like I'm worried?"

"Only about my laundry," Starsky said.

*

Hutch felt he should have been relieved how it all went. His partner took the stand to a hushed courtroom, all uncomfortably aware of the gaze of the main defendant, Hensley Reeder, which strayed only once or twice from the face of the dark-haired policeman. Michael Reeder and Eric Jemson sat with their eyes firmly on the floor.

Even when asked to identify the men behind his first abduction Starsky just said, "Sitting over there between the two cops. The leader would be the guy looking straight at me now." The only time he came close to losing his studied control was when the lawyer for the defendants wondered how Detective Starsky could be so sure of the men he was trying to convict when, by his own admission, he had been hit over the head, blindfolded, attacked in a dark cave by an unseen assailant with a flaming torch which then affected his vision and subsequently poisoned by something which made him unaware of his surroundings before allegedly being strung up by the wrists by three men whose faces were hidden by black hoods.

"Added to all that, Detective Starsky, please would the jury note that we have not seen you properly identify any of your alleged abductors in this courtroom today."

Hutch watched his partner look out over the court, then straight across at him. It shocked him how much naked pain he saw in Starsky's eyes just for a second. Then Starsky sent his gaze across the room to Hensley Reeder.

"Those are the three men," Starsky said, raising his finger deliberately and pointing them out. Jemson and Michael Reeder were still contemplating their feet. Starsky's own gaze seemed caught for a while in the headlights of Reeder's stare. Then he shut his eyes for a couple of heartbeats before opening them back on the lawyer. Hutch had a momentary fear that Starsky was going to pass out he looked so glazed over.

But that was the low point. Reeder's lawyer couldn't pick things up again after that and by four o'clock the proceedings had been terminated for the day. When they got to the lobby outside the courtroom there was a peculiar euphoria, as if the case was over and justice had already been served. Dean and Del Rey were clapping Starsky on the back. Dobey was shaking his hand, nodding in relief and satisfaction.

"You did good," Hutch affirmed when he saw his partner searching for his approval.

"Well OK, now I need to go," Starsky said, making off up the corridor. Hutch caught sharply hold of his arm so he almost span round.

"Sure you need to go there?" he said. "Let's go find someplace else, huh?"

"What?" Starsky said, looking down at the hand clamped on his arm.

"There's gotta be someplace else round here, Starsk. Let's get out of here."

"No, no, I need to go," Starsky said, removing himself from the arm and continuing off up the corridor.

Hutch looked at the watchful eyes of the others. "It's just... you know," he said lamely.

"Yeah, we know," said del Rey. "But don't sweat it, Hutch. Davey seems OK. I think he may have kicked his demons right out of touch in that courtroom today."

"Maybe so," was all Hutch said.

In the bathroom Starsky splashed water on his face and stood leaning with one hand on the faucet. In the mirror, no demons. Only himself, dripping water on to Hutch's good suit jacket. There were no ghostly faces appearing in the shadows behind his shoulder, no Hensley Reeder. He could not see them, nor even imagine he could see them. But yet they were there. Perhaps he could smell them. He had smelt them before, or thought he had. Having once let that idea into his head, in a second the normal smell of industrial bleach in the bathroom was replaced by something entirely different, something powerful and nauseating that seemed to suddenly come spilling out of the walls to overcome him. Starsky retched. He staggered back a few paces into one of the cubicles, shutting the door with one foot. The smell was just as bad in here and the desire to vomit it away was overwhelming. As he sank his trembling knees to the tiles he was aware that someone was coming in the bathroom.

"Starsk, you in there? You OK?"

Starsky retched again, pleading with his stomach to release something solid.

"Ah, why'd you come in here, Stars... let's get you out, huh?" Hutch's voice was pinched with worry, but persuasive nonetheless. He pulled at the cubicle door but Starsky batted it closed again with the back of his foot.

"'M coming out, Hutch... in a minute... jus'... wait for me... outside... please." He remained on the floor, clutching the sides of the toilet bowl. 

_Get out of here, Hutch, this place is full of them, please just get out._ His head was swimming.

Unwillingly Hutch went out and stood sentry at the door. Sure enough, a minute later it swung open and Starsky emerged.

"Come on, we're going home," Hutch said.

"No, no," Starsky said a little raspily, "let's go get a beer, Hutch. I need a drink. I'm OK now. Just nervous tension. All gone now. You were right. Shouldn't have gone in there."

"You done being sick?"

"Done."

"Well I think I should take you home."

"Hutch, that little mouse cage ain't home. I don't wanna go back there. Let's go and get a beer or two. Whaddya say?"

"Well... OK, but Starsky... Gail's up in court tomorrow morning. I'm thinking you should give that one a miss. Dobey's going to get the weird idea that you never do anything he says."

"No way," Starsky said, his voice coming out normal now. "She needs all the friends she can get."

"Sure you want a beer? The sun isn't even over the yard arm."

"Well lucky Huggy doesn't have a yard arm."

"At least let me drive, huh?"

"You want to drive my car."

"Uh-huh, I want to, and I'm going to be driving you home too, right back to your little mouse cage."

*

At least Starsky had the good grace to look like he'd sunk ten beers in the morning.

"Tell me you didn't sleep on the couch," said Hutch. "You said you were good to get to bed."

"It was so comfortable," Starsky said. "Or it must have been that. I just didn't get up again after you left."

"Are you in or out this morning?" Dobey barked from within his office.

"In," Starsky called back at once, "In court for Gail Harper, which means we're out."

The sound of a chair scraping back, then Captain Dobey's huge frame appeared in the doorway. "And will you be needing another ten beers after going back there?" he said. "You don't need to do it, Detective Starsky. You'll just be giving Reeder another chance to get at you."

"I've told him, Cap," said Hutch, "I've told him over and over."

"I don't want you there, Starsky," Dobey went on. "I want you out doing something that has nothing whatever to do with the Marcus case. Dean and del Rey will handle it."

"Is this an order, Captain?" Starsky's tone was not angry, but matter-of-fact. Hutch rather wondered whether he had lost his ability to become angry. He could feel that ringing up on the debit side.

Dobey seemed to consider this for a moment. "Yes," he said finally. "Yes it is."

He, too, waited for Starsky to explode, but nothing happened. He just shrugged and said, "Poor Gail."

"She's got her Dad there," Hutch comforted him. "She'll make it."

"Sure, but her Dad doesn't know... oh forget it."

Hutch felt the withdrawal Starsky made. He felt it like an ice-pick chipping away at his gut. He knew what his partner was going to do, too. He knew he would spend the day in his same holding pattern, doing and saying nothing alarming, but restlessly planning to find Dean and del Rey, get the whole story of the day in court, and then go back for more beers. Hutch kept them busy. It was OK, he felt, as long as he had a good idea of what Starsky was going to do. He could deal with that. Could just about deal with the beers issue too, so long as it wasn't going to be every night.

"I need to know, Hutch," Starsky said at around two o'clock.

"I know you do. Let me go call Luis, OK?"

Del Rey had just heard from Dean who was in court. _"Wasn't good, Hutch,"_ he said down the phone. _"Jay says she didn't handle it well. Started off fine but went to pieces under cross-exam. Had to adjourn a few times. Ended up saying the Reeders really looked after her, that they weren't gonna kill Davey, it was all just an act... that kinda stuff."_

"OK so say they drop attempted murder. Abduction of a police officer -- he can't get out of that one." The thought of Hensley Reeder walking the streets again was too much. Hutch looked out of the phone booth at Starsky behind the wheel of the Torino. He was reading a magazine, firmly behind his dark glasses as usual.

_"Yeah, well she's gone back to the rehab program. Hafta say her Dad wasn't much help, Hutch. Jay says she was looking all around for... well... maybe for Davey."_

"That's one I'm keeping to myself, Luis. Thanks."

"So? How'd it go?" Starsky tossed the magazine over his shoulder as Hutch got back in the car.

"So-so. Sounds like she came over all flaky again. Couldn't quite go for the jugular. I think it might be Round Two to Reeder." Hutch made a what-can-we-do? gesture but of course Starsky was hiding his reaction behind the dark brown glass.

"Where are we going now?" he demanded after digesting Hutch's comment for a few seconds.

"Identity parade for the attempted school robbery," Hutch said smartly. "You ready for that?" No reply. Starsky was staring sideways out of the window, his hands poised over the steering column. "Starsk?"

"Yeah, yeah," Starsky said under his breath.

*

It turned into a busy afternoon. On the way to the ID parade they got called to another robbery in progress, arriving as two young men were hightailing it out of the back of a hardware store on Bradbury. The resulting sprint from the store to a scuzzy little apartment block up a hill left Hutch trailing in the wake of his partner, who had set off out of the Torino like he had been fired from a cannon. Catching up with him in the stairwell Hutch found Starsky poised between the fifth and sixth floors, still as a statue where the steps turned a corner, gun drawn, intense concentration on his face. He's wired, Hutch thought.

Starsky stepped round the corner and motioned at the second door along the sixth floor corridor with his left hand. With his right he held up two fingers and then mimed a request for caution. Hutch nodded. All this was standard. Why was Starsky making such a big deal out of it? As the got up the stairs they could hear frantic scrabbling noises coming from inside the apartment. Hutch got his back to the wall, saw Starsky was ready too, and reached his hand across to bang on the door with the handle of his .45.

"Police! Open the door!"

To their surprise, after a moment the door sprang open and a voice from within shouted, "Alright, alright, I surrender. Don't shoot, don't shoot!"

Still cautious they peered in. As Hutch took in the young man with his hands up standing back from the door he was also aware of the open window up ahead, and then that Starsky was darting across towards it.

"Don't shoot Danny!" said the young guy desperately, "He's just running cos he's scared."

"OK, feller," Hutch said, "Hands behind head. Against the wall. Take it easy. I'm not going to shoot you. Is Danny armed?"

"Yeah, h... he's got our Dad's pistol."

"Starsk?"

"I see him," Starsky said, already climbing over the sill.

As Hutch got his cuffs on the guy and turned him round to read him his rights, he could hear the soles of Starsky's sneakers squeaking and thumping along the fire escape, then thudding down the steps.

"Listen, hotshot, some nice men in uniforms will be here in a minute," Hutch said. "In the meantime, while I go assist in rounding up Danny-boy, you're going to have to stay right here."

"Whatever, man, whatever," the young guy said. He had no fight left in him and let Hutch drag him across to the iron bedstead and secure his left hand to it with the cuffs.

Hutch stuck his head out of the window. Three floors down he saw Starsky. Danny was below, just getting to the ground. As he got out on to the fire-escape Hutch saw Starsky make the second floor and peer over the iron railing. Then he saw him hook his leg over the barrier and stand up on it.

"Starsky!" he yelled. "What the hell are you doing?"

Starsky jumped the two floors. To Hutch it looked like he threw himself over, but he landed on his feet and rolled, a perfect move, springing up from the dirt and haring off across the dead ground towards the second robber. Hutch took the steps. By the time he was down, he could see Starsky sitting on top of the guy, cuffing him.

"You broke your leg, right?" he said, huffing as he reached them.

Starsky kept his knee in Danny's back.

"What?"

"You jumped two floors, Starsk! What were you thinking of?"

Starsky got to his feet, hauling the guy up with him. He looked at Hutch like he was talking gibberish.

"And yours?" he said.

"He's tied up right now," said Hutch crossly. There were uniforms galloping across the open space now and Starsky pushed his captive over the last few metres to meet them.

"I don't get it," he said. "What's your problem?"

Hutch looked behind him, up at the building they had come from. "You jumped two floors," he repeated. "It's like jumping off the roof of a house. You're lucky you didn't break your neck."

"Why are you so angry, Hutch? You know, I think you really need to find a way to manage your anger."

"Yeah? Well I think you really need to find a way to... access yours!"

"Whaddya mean, access it? What have I got to be angry about?"

"Oh, I don't know, Starsk. Doesn't life make you angry?" He paused, just a nanosecond. "Doesn't what happened to you make you angry?"

"You really want me to be screwed up, don't you?"

Hutch's mouth popped open like a fish. His shoulders sagged. "Why would I want that?"

Starsky back-tracked. "You don't." He traced a circle in the dust with the toe of one sneaker. "I'm sorry. You don't want that. I know you don't. It's just... I'm... doing the best I can. Everyone's treating me like I should be falling apart. I'm only getting on with it, Hutch. Dunno what else to do, but it doesn't seem to be what everybody wants."

"I just want you to be OK."

"No, Hutch. You just want that it never happened."

"Yeah, but _what_ happened, Starsk? What happened? I found you... all alone and trussed up in that place, dark, wet, cold... and dead people all around you. How long had you been there, buddy? What did you see?"

Starsky looked at him. There were scenes passing in front of his eyes, Hutch knew it. But he shook his head. "I didn't see nothing, Hutch," he said. "It was dark. I was out of it."

"You..." said Hutch. "You..."

"I can't tell you. I got no memory of it. I told ya. I was out of it." He put out his hand and closed it around Hutch's wrist. "Telling you, buddy, 'm one of the lucky ones. Why would I want to fall apart about that?"

Hutch looked around him. In the distance there was a flashing light, drawing him back to the reason they were here. He again glanced up at the fire escape.

"That was the jump of someone who just didn't care," he said. Starsky's fingers released abruptly from his wrist. They began to walk back towards the front of the building. "Did you make any judgements about that jump at all?"

"Oh come on, Hutch, we can't make judgements like that."

"Yes, yes we can. We're cops. We're supposed to know what we're doing. Is it going to help me if my guy has turned his piece on me and you've broken your ankle trying to learn to fly?"

"Make up your mind," Starsky said. "First it was my leg, then my neck, now it's my ankle. I dunno, one minute I was looking down at him, next minute I was on the ground. I didn't make no judgement. Musta just jumped."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"Never mind all that, Hutch. Tell me, didja recognise either of these beauties?" They had got round to the black and whites now. "That one, your one. I know him from somewhere."

"Yeah?" Hutch let the previous conversation go. He had no choice. "Well let's follow them in and see what we got."

Back at Metro they found one of the would-be robbers was already on file. Both of them had to be booked and settled in the holding cells by which time it was getting towards the moment that Starsky was going to start talking about beers. They went back to the squadroom to finish up and found Captain Dobey pacing.

"I need you two in here, right now," he said as soon as they came through the door.

For a second Hutch wondered if Dobey had somehow heard about Starsky throwing himself off a second-floor railing. They came into his office and he shut the door.

"Sit down," he said.

They looked at one another.

"What is it, Cap? Bad news?"

"You gonna sit?"

"No," Starsky said at once. "Just tell us."

"OK, yeah, I got bad news. You know Rita Riley?"

"From the Rehab program," Starsky said.

"Yeah, she's the one who's been in charge of Gail Harper's case. Rita just called me. It... uh... seems Gail got back from court kinda upset... you know about this?"

Starsky looked at his partner. Hutch nodded tightly.

"Well it seems that an orderly doing their usual check around five... uh... found Gail... uh... dead in her room."

"Dead," repeated Starsky.

"Suicide?" Hutch said immediately and Dobey nodded.

"Gail killed herself?" Starsky reached for understanding. "Today, after going to court?" He looked to Hutch again. "I shoulda been there."

"No, Starsk, it wasn't you not being there," Hutch said, but his voice sounded forced.

Starsky held up his hand to stop him. "Would you excuse me?" he said and opened the door to leave. Hutch remained stranded on the spot. He heard his partner walking out, across the squadroom and out into the corridor beyond.

"I think you'd better go after him," Dobey said tiredly.

"What else they say, Cap? Did she leave a note? Did they have any clues?"

"No, no note. She'd come out of court saying she felt she let Starsky down... only she didn't call him Starsky."

"No," agreed Hutch grimly. "She called him Polaris. Of course she did. She could never get away from it." He turned round and headed out of Dobey's office, tracking Starsky across the squadroom and out into the corridor. He looked both ways and then went for the bathroom.

"Starsk?"

"Not last time I looked," came a humorous voice from inside a closed cubicle.

Hutch came out and went the other way, round the corner and into the locker-room.

"Starsky, you in here?"

Tommy Blake, standing by an open locker, silently motioned him round the corner towards the showers.

Hutch walked slowly round. His partner was sitting on a bench, leaning back against the cold tiles, staring into space. Hutch heard Blake's locker shut and then the sound of him leaving. He took a seat on the opposite bench, shifting himself forward so his knees touched Starsky's.

"Not your fault," he said quietly.

Starsky shook his head at him, not able to speak. He leaned forward, holding his head as if it hurt. Gently Hutch extended one hand to the back of the bowed head and stroked the nape of the neck.

"What's in there, buddy?" he said in whisper. "Can you tell me?"

For a second more Starsky allowed the contact. Then he moved, sitting up again, pushing himself to his feet. "I shoulda been there," he said. "You can't tell me otherwise."

"Gail was always fragile, Starsk. Nobody made her go to court. Think about it -- we got evidence on how Marcus gets into people's minds... she's not the first one who couldn't take it. That's not your fault."

"And Barney Francome? Jim Wang?"

"What?"

"No, go on, tell me. The fact that they got their throats slit is not my fault?"

"No it's not."

"Come on -- I got jumped anyway. They might as well not have been there. If they hadn't been then they'd still be with their families."

"Well then maybe it's my fault."

"I'm sorry?"

"I made sure the Cap sorted out the protection detail, Starsk. I wouldn't back down on it, you remember?"

Starsky narrowed his eyes, wondering what Hutch was doing. He shook his head again, emphatically this time. "You did exactly what I would have done, Hutch. What I'm saying is, there wouldn't have been any need for it if... if..."

"If your life hadn't been threatened by a psycho who had a bunch of armed henchmen living on your street?"

Starsky's hand went up to his head again. He rubbed fiercely at his temple with his palm.

"Haven't you got enough to handle without blaming yourself for this?"

"Don't start this again, Hutch." Still there was no anger. Just a hint of pleading.

"Start what?"

"This conversation... asking me stuff. I don't need it from you. I get it every week from the shrinks."

"Yeah and I bet you're not telling them anything either."

"Nothin to tell."

"Damnit, Starsky!" Hutch could feel his own temper rising now, as it seemed to do at some time nearly every day at the moment. Usually directed at those who thwarted and frustrated him, just now it was gunning straight for his partner. He began to walk in a circle around Starsky, who remained still, looking at the ground. "I've had it up to here with you walking away from it! I don't buy this no memory bullshit. Now we are going to finish this conversation."

"No we're not," Starsky said. "I think that would be a very bad idea. What did Gail do, huh, you reckon, after spilling her guts in court today? Hung herself from a light fitting? That'd be easy enough, dontcha think? But I wouldn't do that... no... see this..." and he opened his jacket to show his holster with the Beretta nestling inside, "it just needs the one bullet. I've been through it already... you know, you've seen me..."

"Stop it, Starsky."

"Yeah, I remember the killing game... they did it the first time too... with a blindfold... and I know exactly what it feels like and I'm not afraid of it."

"I said stop it."

"OK, good. End of conversation. I'm going for a beer. Then I'm going home and going to bed. I'll see you in the morning." He moved out of the range of Hutch's arm and began out of the locker-room. Hutch, knowing he was dismissed, took half a step anyway, and then stopped. The locker-room door banged.

Hutch sat down on a bench quietly. The ice pick was chipping away at his gut again, and the balance sheet looked like one hell of a mess.

Hang fire there, he thought. Don't push him too hard or you'll lose him.

*

First comes the pain in his head, a little rock in the centre of his skull, throbbing. After a while he becomes aware of the pain in his eyes. He cannot open them -- they seem glued shut -- and behind the lids an intense, white light that hurts. No use trying to move. Arms can't move, legs can't move. That sound, that same sound, of someone trying to breathe, whimpering out their breaths across the room somewhere, whimpering for help he cannot give.

Then, what he dreads. The sound of feet stepping along the floor, beginning faint and then getting louder, coming nearer, the whimpering increasing alongside it. Got to move. Twisting, one way and another, trying to drag open his eyelids. He is upright, disorientated. They will get his eyes open. He would be glad to see the darkness, get some relief from the painful white, except then he knows he will see something more than darkness. The faces. The shadows. For pity's sake, Hutch, come and get me... He feels something cold against his temple and he cannot move his head now. The sound of the barrel rolling around. Waiting for his head to explode off his shoulders.

When it comes, the bullet makes his eyes fly open.

*

Starsky felt the momentum propel him across the ground. There was a thumping sound and he realised he had landed on the floor. He was in the dark, gasping for breath, tangled up in his bedclothes which tripped him up as he attempted to scramble to his feet. Now he knew where he was -- the little bedroom of the mouse-cage. His nostrils were assailed at once by an overwhelming stench, as if the place were full of rotting flesh. Although his knees were still wound up in the sheets he knew he had to get to the bathroom. He half crawled there, dragging the sheets with him. Sick, so sick, as if he could never be sick enough to expunge the smell, the taste of it in his mouth, the feel of it in his stomach. And so lonely.

Call Hutch, a voice inside him urged. He even said it out loud to himself. Call Hutch, call Hutch. But first he had to lie there until the sickness had passed, until he could summon the strength to move from his prone position. When he finally got into the main room and found a light the little mouse-cage came into view. It was all browns and creams, like a hotel room. He sat on the couch, cold and sweaty, and pulled the phone towards him. For a minute he looked at it, and then pushed it away again. The smell had gone now, but not the pain in his head.

The clock read two-fifteen. Starsky limped back into the bathroom and found some aspirin. What would Hutch do? Make him tea, probably. He filled the kettle and put it on. When he had made the tea he stood in the door of the bedroom looking in. All the things that had been on the nightstand had got dragged to the ground as he had come off the bed. He did not remember his feet moving until he had been on the ground. Like something had thrown him off. Knocked him off. He rubbed his head, grimacing. No, he could not go back to bed. Instead, he found a blanket and plumped up the cushions on the couch. After a few flicks he found some Looney Tunes on the TV. He took two aspirin, and then two more fifteen minutes later. He was lucky, he told himself firmly, wrapping the blanket around him as tightly as he could. It was Daffy Duck -- his favorite.

*

Hutch let himself in at quarter to eight, having knocked lightly a few times. He knew his partner had not been to Huggy's last night. Hutch had restrained himself from calling to check he was home in one piece, but he saw no reason, in the interests of friendship and getting to work on time, that he should not check now. Not that he wasn't a tad nervous, wondering what reception he might get today.

He found the little apartment dark, lit only by the flicker of the TV and the light from the bathroom. There was a hunched figure on the couch. Hutch stepped lightly over to the window and opened the blinds a fraction. He glanced in through the bathroom door. There were some towels discarded on the tiles, water splashed around everywhere, and Starsky's bed sheets lying in heap in the center of the floor.

When he turned back into the main room the figure had not moved and Hutch stood and looked for a while. Starsky was hunkered down under one blanket, clearly fast asleep. One hand trailed on the carpet, the other was wrapped around one of the couch cushions in a rather defensive posture. On the brown glass coffee table an empty cup and a bottle of pills. Hutch's shoulders prickled. He went over and picked up the bottle, peering at it. Aspirin -- half full. Then he pushed Starsky's legs, none too gently, to find a space to sit down on the couch.

Starsky moaned and slapped his trailing hand down on the carpet.

"Is this a hangover?" Hutch said clearly.

"What are you doin here?" Starsky mumbled, not opening his eyes.

"I've come to get you to go to work."

"Oh." Both eyes came open and looked straight at him. "It's not a hangover. But get me some coffee, would ya? Please?"

"Sure, Starsk, but suppose you tell me why you're sleeping on the couch again?"

As he moved off towards the kitchen area he could hear Starsky struggling to sit up. "Hey! It's the Roadrunner. Last time I looked it was... something else."

"Yeah, but the couch, Starsk?"

Feet hit the floor. "It was more comfortable."

"Uh-huh. And the sheets in the bathroom?"

"I was too hot."

"Can't you alter the temperature in the bedroom?" Hutch asked casually, strolling over to the open bedroom door and glancing inside. The pillows were on the floor, with the contents of the nightstand and the quilt.

"Probably. You doin coffee, Hutch?"

"Yeah. You want to take a shower, get dressed? We do have stuff to do you know."

"OK. Just do the coffee. I'll be right with you."

Hutch heard bare feet stickily crossing the tiles in the bathroom, an exclamation muttered under the breath about the sheets, which came flying out of the door and landed half on the coffee table, the bang of the shower cubicle door and then water.

"You want breakfast?" Hutch asked when Starsky came trailing out of the bedroom some ten minutes later in jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie.

"I'll get something on the way." Something approaching happiness touched Starsky's face as he took the large mug of steaming coffee from his friend and held it up to his lips. He laced all his fingers together and hugged the mug to him, looking dubiously round the room, at the discarded blanket and sheets. "You seen my shoes?"

Hutch shrugged, but began poking about anyway. He found one under the couch. The other one turned up in a corner of the bathroom. Starsky put them on and then went back to the coffee. Catching sight of the aspirin bottle he reached out a hand for it, but then realised Hutch was watching him.

"Maybe all these aspirin are making me sick," he ventured.

"You sick again?"

"I don't know. Maybe last night. Perhaps it was the beer."

"You don't seem very sure of last night," Hutch observed, picking Starsky's brown leather off the floor and handing it to him.

"Musta been that good." He patted Hutch on the stomach with the back of his hand as he headed past him out of the door. "Thanks for coming over."

Hutch gave him a credit for that.

*

Dobey was nervous when they arrived. He yelled their names out of one side of his mouth in a way that could have been angry, or it could have been worried. They sauntered in, Starsky still chewing vigorously on a Danish, a paper napkin flapping from the top of the hoodie's zipper. Hutch cracked his knuckles. The Captain had a piece of formal-looking paper in his hand. He let them get inside the room and then gestured for Hutch to shut the door, waving the paper at him.

"You remember you applied to do the Advanced Law and Litigation training, Hutchinson?"

"Sure," said Hutch, rolling his eyes. "I applied last year. Then they dropped the program."

Dobey slapped the piece of paper into Hutch's hand. "Well it's started up again," he said, "and they've put you on the next course. Beginning Monday morning."

"Hey, that's great," Starsky said, plucking the napkin from the zipper, wiping his mouth and fingers.

"Monday," said Hutch, vaguely running his eyes down the print on the page and then looking up and watching as his partner rolled up the napkin into a ball and catapulted it across the room into the corner where there was no wastepaper bin.

"Yes, Monday."

"Well that's... well that's difficult, Cap. How long is this program?"

"It's two weeks, up at the university law faculty."

"Now's the time," Starsky said, apparently unconscious of the effect of this statement.

Hutch blinked at him. "Now isn't the time. It really is not the time, Starsk. I don't think I should be away for two weeks."

Starsky's left eyebrow went up slowly. "Why? 'S'not like we're working on anything major. I am aware, you know, that the Cap here has got me on light duties..." He paused. "Whatever that means."

Hutch looked to Dobey. "If I turn it down?"

"You won't get another invitation."

"Hey, come on, Hutch," Starsky said, "You're always wanting to exercise that big brain o' yours with this kinda stuff. Think of all those heavy books you'll get to read."

"You should have applied too," Hutch said, "We're both supposed to know about this law we go around trying to uphold."

"Ah, you can fill me in later," Starsky said. "He should do it, shouldn't he, Cap?"

"If he wants to," Dobey growled.

"Well I want to," said Hutch. "Just don't know if..."

"Hey, if I promise to be good? You can call me every night... if I'm not home I'll be at Hug's. Aw, go on, Hutch. It'd do you the power of good."

"What was that supposed to mean?" Hutch demanded a few minutes later when they had left Dobey's office with the confirmation signed. "That it'd be good for me?"

"Well, you spend all this time worrying that pretty little head of yours about stuff that you can't help. This'll be good. I can see you now -- sitting in the front row with your notebook, putting up your hand every minute... Grade A student."

"And you'll be OK?"

"You're not my mother, Hutch."

"No, I'm much worse."

"I said, didn't I? I'll be good. I'll keep my appointments, go to bed early. I'll even take some vitamins if it'll make you happy."

"Well alright then," said Hutch, a sudden and welcome feeling of lightness in his heart that he was going to be away from it all for a couple of weeks. "You have to keep your side of the bargain though, Starsk. You lay low, I'll do this course. And see if I think you'd be up to it."

"Nah, I don't do sitting in classrooms," Starsky said.

"Well what will you do?"

"Told ya. Light duties," Starsky said. "I'm sure Cap'n Dobey will think of something nice."

Starsky was pure lightness the rest of the day. Obliging, humorous, focused, leaving his dark glasses off for whole hours at a time. He allowed himself to be dissuaded from visiting the Rehab program and talking to Rita Riley, and then from calling Gail Harper's father, agreeing that Dean and del Rey would handle it. Hutch gratefully brought up the balance sheet and re-arranged it. They went out for beers with Huggy, but Starsky only had four and then slept at Hutch's -- slept like a baby, rolled up in a quilt on the couch, not asking for aspirin and not waking until Saturday morning dawned bright and hopeful and Hutch slapped a newspaper down next to his ear.

For the first couple of days, Hutch was elsewhere. Elsewhere from the classroom full of other cops, some of whom he knew; elsewhere from the big books that Starsky had predicted, now piled up comfortingly in his kitchen; and even elsewhere from the attractive older woman tutor, in her late forties, mind like a razor and figure like a woman half her age. But then on Tuesday night he rang Starsky and was amazed to find him at home in the mouse-cage, being sociable with a neighbour and not sounding soused in beer. By Wednesday afternoon Hutch found himself getting wrapped up in the business of the course, the challenge of an assignment for the weekend and managing to lay his trust in Huggy, Dobey... and even in Starsky himself.

Evidently Starsky finished late on Friday, and then on Saturday Hutch had a tennis match and then dinner with a friend from home who was visiting. No reply at the mouse-cage on Sunday morning, but Sunday night Starsky left a message on Hutch's answering-machine.

"Hey, Professor, hope you had a good week. Listen, if you're not studying too hard, you old egg-head, I'll seeya at Hug's on Tuesday evening." Hutch listened to the message a few times, but it all sounded fairly normal. It was odd to set off on Monday morning without having seen his partner for so long, given that they were still in the same city. On a break he called Metro and found that Dobey was off sick. Someone told him Starsky had hardly been out on the street at all last week, apparently happily engaged in some rookie training marathon with Minnie Kaplan. Minnie came to the phone and told him that Starsky was fine.

Tuesday evening Hutch got to Huggy's by half six. Huggy greeted him with a smirk at the bag full of books he had with him. Hutch banged them down on the bar and sat at a stool.

"You gotta be having me on," Huggy said, "You really read all those things?"

Hutch tapped the books. "Knowledge is power, Hug."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Starsky been in much?" Hutch asked casually as Huggy laid down the beer glass in front of him. Huggy's mobile face worked into a thoughtful expression.

"Once or twice," he said. "The Curly One seems on a permanent high."

"A good kind of high?"

"There's a bad kind?"

"You know what I mean, Hug."

"Yeah, I know. Well, let me see. He didn't fall off his stool, sing, or throw any glasses. Made the customers laugh. Didn't talk about any cop stuff. Talked about you. And talked about some girl he saw in the 7-11. Left before the witching hour. That's about it."

Hutch sipped at the icy froth. "So I'm doing the right thing?"

Huggy sidled off to see to another customer. "You'll see," he said. "He'll be here any minute."

*

At seven Starsky wandered in with Jason Dean.

"What is this?" Huggy whined at them, "A Cops' Convention? I got a reputation to maintain."

"That's OK," Starsky said, his face a broad grin. "We're not staying."

"We're not?"

"Party," said Dean. "We're just picking up Hutch."

"Party?" Hutch mouthed at his partner.

"Listen, I'm meeting this girl there," Starsky said.

"7-11?" Huggy queried.

"I'm not sure I can keep going that long."

Hutch sent a look Huggy Bear's way, that said see what you mean.

The party that Jason Dean and Starsky had un-earthed was the normal Friday-night fare -- there was a very overcrowded apartment, some very loud music, furniture pushed back to make an impromptu dancefloor, a kitchen heaving with booze and peculiar substances and a heady mix of cops and their acolytes off-loading the stresses of the week. Comprehension dawned on Hutch well into the early hours. Starsky was drunk and he had been aiming to get drunk from the moment he set foot in Huggy's.

"Are you avoiding me?" he asked, cornering his partner on another raid to the seemingly endless supply of beers. Starsky was definitely drunk, in his customary silly, incoherent way that could be endearing until someone punched him or he fell over.

"Why, are you the girl from the 7-11?" Starsky slurred.

"Do I look like...? OK, Starsk, do you want me to get you home?"

Starsky smiled, a broad, sleepy, loving smile. "C'mon, Hush, lemme have one more dance."

Hutch plucked the latest bottle from his hand. He picked up a floppy arm and slung it around his shoulder. "Here we go, twinkletoes. We're going to have a little waltz, right out of here."

"Thazgood."

"This is getting to be a habit, Starsky," said Hutch when he finally got him through the front door of the mouse-cage.

"'m fine. Wanna sleep on the couch."

"What's wrong with your bed?"

"'snot my bed."

"Well what's wrong with this bed?"

"I want to sleep on the couch," Starsky intoned distinctly. "You have the bed."

"The bed you never sleep in?"

"You'll love it. I prefer the couch."

He was out almost as soon as Hutch got him laying down, twisting himself around to take hold of the nearest cushion which he bunched into his chest. There was a pile of blankets on the floor already and Hutch just threw a couple of them over him. Then he sat in a chair across the room for a while.

When he went out at seven the next morning Starsky had not moved. Hutch left a big glass of water and a note on the table in front of him. _Didn't your mother ever tell you not to party midweek?_

*

The next three days dragged. There was a final test on the Friday afternoon and the class dispersed at around four. Hutch headed straight for Metro. Dobey was back, shut in his office with someone. The squadroom was mostly empty. It looked like Starsky had left for the day. Always one step behind, Hutch thought grimly. Just as he was about to leave, Dobey's door sprang open. The Captain came out, letting his visitor leave before turning squarely to Hutch.

"Hutchinson," he said. "We need to talk about Starsky."

*

The horn of the Torino sounded outside Venice Place a few minutes before eight on Monday morning. Hutch looked out the window, raised a hand to the figure behind the wheel and, grabbing his jacket and wallet, made for the door.

"Your timekeeping is exemplary, my friend," he said as he got in the car.

Starsky grunted at him. He was sitting hunched over the wheel. It was a bright morning and his eyes were screwed up against the sunlight beaming in through the windshield.

"Where's your shades?"

"Lost 'em."

Hutch reached into his jacket and extracted his own, handing them over. Starsky pressed them on.

"You have a headache?" Hutch queried as his partner revved up the engine and pulled away from the kerb.

"I've always got a headache," Starsky said.

"Well maybe if you laid off the beers..."

"I didn't have any beers, Hutch. I think that's why I got a headache."

"You OK to roll?"

Starsky glanced at him and then back to the road ahead. "Yeah, 'm OK."

"Where were you all weekend?"

"Oh here and there."

"I graduated you know."

"Yeah, sorry I missed that. You all up to speed now?"

"So they say."

"Good." Starsky relapsed into silence. That was one of the things Dobey had said. He's not talking much all of a sudden. Fine for a few days after Hutch left, then... went into himself like a turtle going into its shell. And Huggy was telling him something else. The Curly One seems on a permanent high. Even on the drive into Metro Hutch could tell that the holding pattern had altered. Starsky had come out of it and was moving somewhere else entirely.

"You in there?" Hutch asked eventually. They had arrived at Parker, left the car in the lot and gone into the elevator without Starsky having said another word. He still wore the dark glasses.

Starsky whipped off the shades and stuffed them in his pocket and in the light of the elevator Hutch could now see his face clearly. It was that sick dog look, the one he had worn the day of his court appearance, made worse now by the purple-grey smudges under his eyes.

"Not looking good, Starsk."

Starsky brought up a hand and passed it across his face. "I'll be all right."

"Look like you haven't slept in a while."

"It's that place," Starsky said. "You know I hate that place."

"That place. OK. Is it that place that made you stop going to see psychs?"

Starsky squared his shoulders. "Dobey's been blabbing, huh?"

"He's worried for you, Starsk, that's all."

"Well he needn't be, just because I don't want a bunch of shrinks pulling my chain every five minutes." The elevator doors opened on the second floor.

"They want me to talk to them but I don't got nothin to say, Hutch."

"Hey," Hutch said in an undertone as they walked up the corridor. "I'm hanging in here for you, buddy, but you gotta give me something back. I'm not psych services, I'm the one who's got to ride around in a car with you all day."

"Well just do that, wouldya?" Starsky said, slowing down as they approached the squadroom. "Don't need nothin else."

Hutch followed him in. It had taken just two weeks for Starsky to withdraw way back behind his wall. Maybe that was how he was going to face this week -- Gail Harper's memorial; sentencing in the Reeder and Jemson trial; another catch-up meeting with Dean and Del Rey. So... I've tried taking you on... I've tried hanging back... I've even left you alone for two weeks... what now?

"I mean it," Hutch persisted, leaning over the desk as Starsky sat down opposite. "I'm hanging in here." He managed to catch Starsky's eye. "I'll do it for nothing, OK?"

*

That week, as every day began, Hutch had to wonder which Starsky was going to turn up for duty. It was the concentrated Starsky that went to the Garden of Memories chapel and met Gail's father, and the monosyllabic Starsky that came back. It was the conspicuously chatty Starsky that arrived at court to hear Eric Jemson and the Reeder brothers sent down for a combined total of eighty-five years, and a manically high Starsky that wanted beers afterwards. On Thursday afternoon Hutch had left a listless Starsky slumped in the Torino while he went to join a line for the ATM when he suddenly heard the Torino horn blaring behind him. Turning around he saw the car doing a wild u-turn across the street and the passenger door hanging open for him. He knew another Starsky had arrived.

As he bowled into his seat with the door still flapping, aware of the astounded audience of the line at the ATM behind them, he managed to ask, "What is it? Where we going?"

"Shut the door, Hutch!" Starsky yammered at him.

"What?" Hutch demanded, reaching for the handle which was swinging out of reach.

"Request for back-up from our boys," Starsky said. "10th and Marlow. They think they have Boyd Black."

"You sure about this?" Hutch asked getting the door closed at last, and bumping his head on the car roof as they bounced down the street. His partner had switched back into hyper-responsive, so keen and so ready that his excitement was tangible.

"These guys are armed, Hutch. This is our job."

"10th street," Hutch said. "Wouldn't it just have to be 10th Street."

"I knew it," said Starsky, "Knew they couldn't keep away."

No shots had been fired by the time they arrived. The site of McCarthy's Gym, demolished within a week of the discovery of Starsky and the six corpses, was a few blocks down 10th Street behind them. Officers Dean and del Rey were behind their car outside a three-storey shoe-store which had a closed sign hanging in the door.

"They went in back," Dean said when Starsky and Hutch skittered across the street to crouch down next to them. "Three guys. A uniform identified Boyd Black coming out of a dry-cleaners -- he got in a car with two others and we picked them up about ten blocks away."

"Why here?" Hutch asked.

"Beats me," said Dean. "They don't know they're being tailed so they're not hiding. Maybe there's something going on in there."

"The dry-cleaners," Starsky said. "What was it called?"

Dean looked across at him like he was mad. "Hell, I don't know!"

"It was called Mister Kleen," said del Rey. "Why, Davey?"

"Boyd Black was there looking for me," Starsky said calmly and looked out over the car. "OK, let's move."

"I'll take the back," Hutch said. "Jay, you're with me."

They had just stood up to move out towards the side of the building when the front of the store opened and a man came out. He was tall and wiry with dark skin and long brown hair and he saw the cop cars straight away. Drawing a gun from behind him he loosed off one shot and then retreated back into the store, slamming shut the door.

"The back!" repeated Hutch and set off with Jason Dean at his heels. There was the sound of a siren coming up the street.

Starsky and del Rey took the door, finding the front of the shoe-store empty, the lights out. Out the back was the store-room, full of high shelves piled with boxes. A bullet pinged past del Rey's shoulder as they came in, sending shards of glass from a skylight showering down. Shots were being fired at the back. Starsky went weaving through the shelves, out the open back door and on to a wide alleyway running along the back of the block. There was one man down, Dean just turning him over, and Hutch was racing up the alley behind the long-haired guy.

Starsky saw the whole scene in slow motion, even though he himself was moving so fast. He didn't know the guy who was down, or the one who was bobbing behind some pipework to his left, shouting at them and firing wildly at del Rey as he emerged out of the backdoor. But he knew Jermaine Boyd Black, running up the alley, with his long hair and three-day growth. He saw Boyd Black turning and firing, Hutch flattening to the dust, and he came down off the steps with a single thought in his mind. He had to close the distance between himself and this man. It was his chance to get this one out of his head. He could not let him get away.

"You OK?" he shouted as he gained on Hutch, who was just coming back up to his knees.

"OK," Hutch said back, realising that Starsky had hurdled him and was sprinting off towards the lanky figure with wings in his heels. It was clear that Starsky would get him before he reached the corner and Hutch knew he had to get there too.

Starsky went for Boyd Black's knees as soon as he was near enough, the flying tackle sending them both crashing into the concrete. Knowing only too well how strong the man was, Starsky dealt at once with the gun, stamping one foot down hard on the back of his hand and knocking the weapon away. It skimmed off across the ground and as Boyd Black struggled to regain his feet he got his own gun into his left hand and brought it up close to the back of his head.

"Under arrest, Jermaine," he said.

Boyd Black had got up now but Hutch came in from behind, getting his arms in a lock, forcing him back down to his knees. The cuffs clicked. They all heard the running footsteps of Detective Dean arriving.

Hutch had holstered his gun again. Boyd Black was still on his knees, Starsky's Beretta aimed at his head. Starsky seemed oddly unaware of anyone else's presence just then. He moved around the figure of Boyd Black, keeping the gun in position, both hands on it, as tense as if they were still in stand-off.

"OK, Starsky, we're through," Hutch said, and had the peculiar sensation that his partner had not heard him at all.

Starsky slid the barrel of the Beretta right around Boyd Black's skull and nestled it into his right temple.

"Starsky, come on, willya. Leave it alone now," Hutch said, sudden fear constricting his throat.

"Davey," Dean said doubtfully. "Hey, what's going on?"

Starsky leant down close to Boyd Black, the gun pushing hard into the little hollow by his eye. "How does it feel?" he said.

"Starsk, give me the gun," Hutch said. "Give it me, now!"

"Feels cold, huh?" Starsky said. Boyd Black's face had contorted and he squeezed shut his eyes, letting out little panicky breaths. A screen door squeaked and a woman and child appeared out the back of the house directly behind them. Starsky did not seem to notice at all. "I've got plenty of bullets, Jermaine. This is no game, you worthless piece of shit. I can kill you right now, I swear I can do it. I swear I'm going to do it."

Hutch felt that there was no doubt in Starsky's mind that he wanted to pull the trigger right then. And he maybe would have done, too, if at that moment he had not been distracted.

"Mommy?" said the child in a clear little voice.

Starsky's eyes snapped up to look at them. He looked back at his hands, tensed in the ready to shoot position. For a second more he kept the barrel pressed into Boyd Black's head, and then he raised it up to the sky, clicked on the lock and slowly straightened up. The face he turned on Hutch was full of confusion as if he were waking up from a dream. All the color had drained from it. Hutch glanced back up the alleyway where there seemed to be a group of uniforms with del Rey and the other two men against the wall.

"Put your gun away, Starsky," he said quietly, but he had to come over and take it off him as Starsky just stood there looking at the child. "Jay, you deal with this." He got Starsky to the opposite side of the alley from the woman and child who were still standing there staring and made him sit down on a low wall. Then he stood shielding him from their gaze and that of Dean and a uniform who had come up to assist. Uncomfortably positioned on the bricks, Hutch's hand pressing on his shoulder to keep him down, the world coming and going before his eyes, Starsky wondered if he was going to throw up again.

*

"I'm sorry, Starsky, but you're suspended."

Dobey had kept them penned in his office while he talked to the Commissioner and Internal Affairs, and when he came back they were both standing there before his desk, as if they knew already what he would say. They looked completely strung out, both of them. His best boys.

"Aw, Cap... is this really necessary?" Hutch said.

"Yes," said Dobey. "It really is. The incident was reported by a witness. IA are screaming. Boyd Black's lawyer is screaming. You need to give me your badge and your gun, Detective. Then you need to go home and stay there until further notice."

Starsky fished out the Beretta and plonked it down on Dobey's desk. Then he pulled out his badge and looked at it before tossing it down next to the gun.

"Get him out of here, Hutchinson, before the press turn up will you?"

"We got Boyd Black, Cap," Starsky said in an incongruously chirpy voice. "That's good, huh?"

"Yeah, that's good, Dave. Now go home would you? We'll work things out here."

"You think I would have pulled the trigger?" Starsky asked when Hutch had got him into the car.

"I don't know," Hutch said. "Do you?" He looked over as he started the Torino's engine. Starsky was patting his pockets, ignoring the question. "On the dash," said Hutch. Starsky reached for the dark glasses and shoved them on. He leaned his head against the glass. "Don't wanna go back to that place."

"No," said Hutch. "I'm taking you where you should have been all along. I'm taking you home to look after you, and if McCarthy wants you he'll have to come through me. Now shut up. I've had enough of you for today."

Sitting on a stool by the sink, Starsky did not make much effort to eat the food that Hutch made for him. He watched his partner with wary eyes as he moved around him, tidying up, making phone calls, putting on music.

"Sorry," he said eventually.

"What are you sorry for?" asked Hutch irritably. "Not liking my cooking? Or because you nearly put a bullet in Jermaine Boyd Black's head this afternoon?"

"Well I didn't though, did I," Starsky said, equally irritable.

"That woman is going to swear you would have."

"Ah, what does she know?"

"Are you going to eat any of that?"

Starsky looked down at the plate. "I gotta really be in the mood for this kind of stuff," he said. "And I ain't in the mood."

"Fine." Hutch snatched up the plate, tipped the contents into the trash and banged it down in the sink.

"You're really, really pissed at me," Starsky said.

"Something like that."

"Said I'm sorry," sighed Starsky, tipping his head down to meet his hands. "You got any aspirin, my head's killing me."

Hutch, busy being cross while he cleared up the pots, stopped what he was doing. He slung the dishcloth back in the sink and came to stand next to him. "If I give you some will it make the headache any better?" he asked calmly.

"Prob'ly not, but give 'em to me anyway."

"Suppose you try something else?"

"Like what?" asked Starsky. "No, don't tell me. Yogic head massage, that it? Or... or how about some nice visualisation techniques... that psychs woman loves those. Hell, I could take an ice bath maybe... poke some needles in my head... or just go out and get wasted." He glared at his partner, waiting for him to say something, but Hutch just went over to the icebox and opened it, revealing a neat row of beer bottles on the front shelf.

Starsky shook his head, sliding off the stool. "Nah, don't feel like beer. Don't feel like arguing, either. I want to sleep."

"Well you take the bed because I'm not done out here."

Starsky looked towards the bedroom doubtfully. "OK, thanks," he mumbled.

When he came out of the bathroom Hutch, poised on the couch with his guitar, twisted around. "Sleep well," he said shortly.

Starsky gave him a peculiar look, as if he were about to say something, but just nodded and retreated into the bedroom. Hutch heard the clonking sound of his sneakers being kicked off and hitting a wall, the squeaking of the closet door as he looked for something to wear. Then the click of the lamp going off and finally silence. As he stretched out on the couch himself a few hours later, it was still silent in there -- not so much as a cough, a snore or a creak had emanated from behind the door. It took Hutch a while to get to sleep. The couch would do his back in for sure, and, in his experience, Starsky in a troubled mood was likely to come padding in and out half the night like a small child -- wanting a glass of water, or a snack, or a new pillow. He lay there listening until his eyes abruptly dropped shut.

*

When the bedroom door crashed open in the middle of the night, Hutch came awake as if a shot had been fired by his ear. Realising at once he was not being ambushed, but that a figure was careering out of the bedroom behind him he shouted into the darkness, "What in hell's going on?"

Coming off the couch in a roll he saw Starsky staggering across the room, bent double, but he was not in time to get to him before he made the bathroom and tried to shut the door. Hutch stuck his foot out and caught it in the door as it swung closed. On the other side Starsky seemed to have no strength or time to fight him, and Hutch got inside to see him toppling down by the toilet bowl.

"Jesus, Starsk, what's happening, what's wrong?"

Starsky was coughing and gagging on his knees as if something were choking him but he did not seem to be throwing anything up. "Go 'way," he managed to wheeze out, the words bouncing off the shiny enamel.

"Not going anywhere," Hutch responded. "Staying right here. Tell me what's happening, Starsk."

"Sick... cantcha see..."

"It's OK," Hutch said, bending down by him, "You're coming out of here. Don't care if you throw up all over the carpet, but you're coming out of here now."

Starsky seemed more or less unable to either resist or help, and it was a job to get him under the arms and heave him back out of the bathroom. He almost seemed to be still half-asleep, pitching on to the couch where he sat bending forward, his elbows in his stomach and his forehead pressing down into his fingers. Hutch sat and wrapped one arm around his shoulders and curled his free hand around the forearm nearest to him.

"Tell me what it is, Starsk," he said, bending his own head. "Tell me what's happening." He could feel the rough edges of the scars on Starsky's wrist under his fingers.

"Oh God... the smell, Hutch," Starsky croaked out. "The smell of it. Oh God..." and he convulsed again, nearly falling forward on his knees. Hutch hauled him back up again.

"The smell of what, buddy? What is it?"

"Dead people," Starsky said.

"Uh-uh," Hutch contradicted, curling his fingers again around the tensed wrist. "There's no dead people here. You're at my place, Stars. Worst thing you can smell around here is that aftershave you gave me for Christmas."

"I can... I can..."

"No you can't. There's nothing here, I'm telling you. You were dreaming."

When he said that, Starsky suddenly groaned.

"Head hurting?" Hutch asked, trying to get a look at his face.

"I need... I need..."

"OK, hold on." Hutch let go the wrist and took away his arm, feeling Starsky sag a little as he did. He sprang up and went for the bathroom, opening the cabinet, sweeping one hand in and coming back with some aspirin. Half expecting Starsky to crumple down on the carpet while he was gone, he fetched a glass of water and hurried back. He sat back down to get two of the pills out, then he caught hold of Starsky's nearest hand and turned it over palm up, placing the small white circles in the centre. Starsky, his eyes shut against what he could still sense, got them in his mouth somehow. Hutch handed him the glass, watched him swig back the pills and then retrieved it before it slid through his nerveless fingers. Putting the glass down again Hutch replaced his arm.

"Can you still smell it?" he asked.

"My head," was all Starsky said.

"Does this happen a lot?" Hutch asked. No answer to that one. "What did you dream?" Nothing. "OK, buddy... listen to me. Are you listening at least?" He moved one hand to the back of Starsky's neck and began to knead at the locked muscles, trying to get him to relax a little. "I've tried coming at this every which way, Starsk. I've watched you, I've nagged you, I've confronted you, I've let you be. Trusted you to deal with it, Gordo... thought you'd turn to me if it got too hard. But you haven't turned. You've got yourself so far along that lonely road... You've shut me out. I haven't even got a toe-hold, buddy."

"'m not dreaming the pain in my head," Starsky said through clenched teeth. He sounded angry.

"You're in a bad way, I can see that," Hutch agreed. "But it started with a dream, right? Would you tell me what that dream was, Starsk? Give us somewhere to start."

"We ain't starting nothing," Starsky said sullenly.

"You're here to stay," Hutch told him. "You're crashing and yelling and moaning all over my house -- it's started, whether you like it or not. You've told me you can smell dead people. It makes you sick -- I've seen you like it before, remember. OK, so the headache... what's started the headache? What was in the dream?"

Starsky lifted his head at that point and turned it to look at Hutch as if to say who the hell do you think you are? "Don't play the lousy therapist with me," he said.

Hutch took a breath. "I'm not playing the lousy therapist. This is me. When you've quit psychs, when you've fooled Huggy and all your other friends into thinking you're fine, when you've put the phone down on everyone else... I'm the one who'll still be here. Whether you like it or not. So come on. Tell me this dream. You've had it before, right?"

"OK, OK, it's happened before," Starsky growled. "I always end up on the couch -- don't seem to dream on the couch." He shrugged, still resisting the crushing urge to unburden himself on his friend. "It's a dream about being in that place -- that place of McCarthy's. Bound to happen -- that's what the psychs woman said. Bound to have nightmares because I was scared for my life. There you go."

Hutch shook his head. "You are just the stubbornest sonofa... Starsky, you don't need to protect me from it. You have no idea the things I've imagined for you. Help me out here would you? This is killing me."

Starsky's forehead screwed up and the face he turned on Hutch then was flooded with such a remorse that Hutch knew that he had found the weak spot in his friend's defences.

"The dream's just a dream," Starsky said finally in a hoarse voice. "You want to know all the stuff that happened?"

"I need to know, Stars. I really need to know."

So Starsky told him, beginning at Ridgeway the night the babysitters, Francome and Wang, were killed. The fight he put up against McCarthy, Defoe and Boyd Black when they dragged him out of his bed. How he got Defoe down and nearly got to his gun. How he lay on the floor of a vehicle counting the stop lights, memorising every turn they made. How he saw the 10th Street sign reflected upside down in the small corner of window he glimpsed when they stopped for the last time. He didn't know he was in McCarthy's Gym because they put on a blindfold. It was just a place. A place that was full of dead people, that he saw when they took off the blindfold, tied him to a chair. The three of them came and went. Told him he couldn't have any food or water, he could just starve to death. No sustenance for Polaris -- that was a snippet from Simon Marcus's ever-changing dream. Let the star fade out. The rain coming down on him through the roof. The whimpering of someone who wasn't quite dead yet but who he could not reach. The cuffs being so tight round his wrists that he feared it would slit them right open. Being cold. When it was dark, the game with the gun. Four or five times, believing each time that he was about to die. Always Boyd Black with the pistol against his head, Boyd Black with his powerful hands pressing the barrel in like it would break the skin and tunnel right through his skull.

"He's the one other person on earth you didn't want to see, right?" asked Hutch at this point but Starsky indicated a negative.

"Nope, that'd be Mitchell McCarthy," he said.

"Why's that?" Hutch's voice was coaxing. He could tell Starsky was looking to back off again.

"Told you before," Starsky muttered. "You don't want to go there. And I'm tired, I want to sleep."

"What did McCarthy do, Starsk? Tell me."

Starsky, who had been crunched up against the couch cushions up to now, abruptly stood up and walked across the room. Hutch sat quiet. He was wondering what the hell he would do if Starsky tried to leave. The bitter words about the Beretta in the locker-room had never quite left his mind.

"He killed both the girls," Starsky said, halting in front of the window, his back to Hutch. "Judith and Lisa." Still Hutch sat quiet, watching the emotions transmitting from his partner's stance, hearing it in the tremor of his voice. He listened to how they had been brought to the Gym by Defoe early in the morning, alive and well. How they had the upside-down crosses etched on their foreheads. They didn't like the Gym much but didn't seem upset to find Starsky imprisoned, or even that bothered by the bodies already there. How they had the dazed, dreamy quality of Gail Harper. Pliant, smiley, out of touch with reality.

But reality came to get them -- in the form of Mitchell McCarthy. It took him all day. Boyd Black watched and Defoe left. They begged and cried for hours, and it was worse for Judith because she saw Lisa killed first and knew what would happen. Begged McCarthy to stop it, begged Starsky to help them.

"And I begged too, Hutch," Starsky said, turning round to face him. There were tears standing in his eyes, glistening in the glare from the striplight in the kitchen. "I begged and begged him not to go on with it and there was those girls screaming out for me to help them and I couldn't move. And I thought... I've gotta blank this out, I can't watch this or I'll go mad, but the screaming was too much, Hutch... I can't tell you what he did to those girls, I can't speak the words. You don't want that in your head too. I won't let you have that."

"OK," Hutch said softly. "OK. You gonna come and sit down again, huh?"

"Sit down?" said Starsky unevenly. The tears were sliding, unchecked, down his face.

"Yeah, I got a bit more talking to do."

"Ya think... ya think ya might have a toe-hold here?"

"Barely, buddy, barely. Would you do as you're told and come and sit here?"

Wiping the wet from his face with the flat of one hand and using the other to hold on to whatever he could find to steady himself, Starsky came back and folded himself into the armchair opposite the couch.

"You're not leaving us many options here," Hutch said, coming to perch on the edge of the coffee-table. "And you know, Starsk, I have to win this battle, bring you down before you go over the edge... and you can see the edge, I know you can. Only thing is, I don't know if you're heading towards it and if you are, how fast you're going." He leaned further forward. "You've blown out the professionals, and you won't lean on me. You're going to have to face Boyd Black in court, suspended or not, and then Mitchell McCarthy is still out there. How are you going to get through this, Starsky? Beer?"

Starsky did not say anything for a while. He just sat, looking away from Hutch, as if he hoped that Hutch would give up and leave him alone. Eventually he said, "I dunno, maybe it'll take a few beers. Or a lot. Maybe way too many. Maybe putting Boyd Black away. Catching McCarthy. Laying it all to rest. Maybe. Or it could take more than that."

"What do you mean?"

Starsky looked at him then and the expression on his face chilled Hutch to the very bone. "I can't seem to get them out of my head," he said dully. "They're always there. And he's always ready to come for me. Sometimes it hurts so much, Hutch, so much... that I just want to stop it. You know, in a second. One shot, one second, over the edge... Polaris dies. You know how it goes. In the end, Polaris always dies."

"No!" said Hutch. "No, that's not how it goes! Forget Polaris, Starsky! Marcus laid that on you, and Marcus is crazy. He knows nothing. He isn't in your head, and he isn't coming for you. He's in a high-security jail and he's never coming out."

"Yeah," said Starsky sitting up and tapping his forehead with one finger. "But he's put something in here that I'm not sure I can live with. We can get the Reeders, and him, and Boyd Black, and who knows... one day Mitchell McCarthy. But the stuff is still in here. Psych services can't take that away. You can't, Hutch, however much you love me... and... I know you do."

"Well if you know that," Hutch said fiercely, "then promise me something here and now. If you get to that point and you just want to stop it... you come to me. You've gotta come to me first, Starsk, and give me a chance. Do you promise me?"

Starsky kind of smiled. He leaned a little towards him, his hands clasped tightly together on his knees. "And you'll talk me down? I've seen you do it." His eyes became shiny again and he swallowed. "Best in the business."

"Promise me," Hutch repeated, closing his own hands around his partner's like a vice.

Starsky looked him in the eye, and slowly, slowly shook his head.


End file.
